Wingnuts

I have no deep thoughts left to plumb. I’ve been busy re-publishing my novels with second edition editing and prices, plus adding a novelette online, plus writing a short story that involved beatings and a criminal investigation with death sentences. I’ve been in the depths so long that my brain is mushy from lack of fresh air. I need some fun, mind-free activity.

The worst part of all that work? Not the squick factor of writing about assault victims, no. The worst part was slapping together a piece of cover art for the novelette. Writers who lack visual-art talent shouldn’t be allowed to do their own covers. That’s a rule I could get behind. The covers to my short works are awful. I’m untalented, and I’m too poor to farm them out to the talented pros, and it shows. Apologies to anyone whose eyes I’ve caused to bleed.

What? Why did I title this post wingnuts if all I’m doing is whining? That’s easy. I used the word because it’s a fun word. I needed some fun. Wingnut makes me giggle.

A wingnut is a perfectly respectable doodad. It’s a metal piece with threads on the inside of a central hole, and two protrusions on the outside that allow one to hand-turn it tightly into place. A nut with wings –> wingnut. Yet it also refers to one whose political leanings are so far removed from the center that one might be considered crazy. Extreme left or right wing adherent –>wingnut.Two completely different meanings lead to the same word, like the convergent evolution of body shape between sharks and dolphins. Or not. That part may only make sense to me. The truth remains that it is a fun word to roll around the mouth.

Wingnut. It launches on the delightful controlled exhalation of “wuh,” rises to the heights of “ing”, and slices through argument with the N of no, only to tie itself off with a sharp tongued T.

Gargoyle is another word that is fun on so many, many levels. They’re grotesques (no, literally) so they look funny. The word is an ugly snarling of syllables that sounds funny. And it looks funny on the written page as well. That’s why I chose it as a Thing I Will Write About Sometimes. There are days when one needs an excuse to knock someone a new block.

Sometimes I need a little fun. I pull out my fun words and have a little party with them. Falafel is on the invitation list. So is butter-brickle. (Ice cream, that is) Blog is not. Blog is an nasty word that associates the end result of all that writing effort with the sound of vomiting. Squash is so horrible a word that other countries have abandoned it in favor of pumpkin. That’s like calling all dogs Lassie, because some other dog was named Rin-tin-tin.

When I have more functioning brain cells, I’ll see if I can think of any other words that are more fun to say that to be. So to speak.

Meanwhile, here for your entertainment and patience, is a picture of gargoyles:

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One thought on “Wingnuts”

I never gave the word wingnut much thought before (unless I actually needed one to keep a construct from falling apart on me), but it is a fun word to say. I think you could add dingbat to your list as word with a similar method of pronunciation but also happily trips off the tongue. And yes, more gargoyles!